US President Donald Trump explained that in his opinion the US has achieved regime change thanks to its air strikes in Iran together with Israel, which killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and many senior representatives of the Islamic Republic, Agence France-Presse reported, quoted by BTA.
"We have regime change, this is already visible, because the first regime was destroyed, erased, they are all dead", Trump said at a briefing. "The next regime," installed immediately after Khamenei's death, "is also largely dead," he told reporters last night.
According to him, this has led to the establishment of a "third regime" in Iran. "We are dealing with people different from those anyone has dealt with before. This is a completely different group of people, so I would consider this regime change," the president added.
US President Donald Trump is considering the possibility of a military operation to seize Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium, The Wall Street Journal reports.
According to the publication, if carried out, the operation, which would be a risky and complex mission, would involve an invasion by US ground forces over several days.
Trump was generally open to the idea of such an operation, but assessed the level of threats to which the US military would be exposed. The US leader has not yet made a final decision.
He has instructed his advisers to pressure Iran to voluntarily hand over nearly 1,000 pounds (approximately 450 kg) of enriched uranium as a condition for ending the conflict.
Trump believes that Washington could, if necessary, quickly end Iran's alleged system of collecting payments for commercial ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
"We'll have to find out whether that's true or not. We can stop that in two minutes, so fast it'll make your head spin," he told reporters on March 29 aboard his plane en route from West Palm Beach, Florida, to Washington. The US prime minister is returning to the White House from his Mar-a-Lago estate near West Palm Beach, where he spent the weekend.
Earlier, The Wall Street Journal reported that Iran's demands to the US included a “new procedure“ for ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. This procedure would “allow Iran to collect payments from ships“ passing through the Strait of Hormuz, similar to what happens in Egypt and the Suez Canal.